Re: Thoughts

The purchases I make aren't small cheap objects they are in the $70-80k range per item.

My company along with all the big players in the same business all source their products from the same company or group of companies so we have a very limited choice in our supply chain.

I get your last point, however I could say the same thing probably about most of the electrical items you have at home.

Is your TV viewing pleasure well worth the employees who suffer manufacturing your set worth it so you can sit on the sofa at night and relax?

It's the same for pretty much all cheap and high end electrical goods that most of us use everyday.

We are all guilty in that respect somewhere along the line, however a majority of people are happy to be blinkered in the belief that their shiny new gadget comes from a shiny shop somewhere in their home country.

Thoughts

Having personally visited many of these mega Chinese factories over the past few years in Shenzhen I was in awe just how bad the conditions are for many.

I can't go in to specifics or supplier for several reasons but I will say the following.

Seeing young women and men working in 43-45 degrees C heat pulling plastic parts from a injection moulder then cutting off the excess material with a bare blade for a pittance wage in conditions that I would describe as hellish.

I basically had free roam of the 6.4 km2 buildings although assisted by our guide, I saw from the very top of the building where the electronics are made in nice air conditioned rooms by people in clean suits to the very bowels where the cases are fabricated.

I like many other businesses am guilty of buying these products from our supplier and haggling for a reduction in price, on the flip side my clients want a low price here in the UK, If I were to source the same items from the US, or European suppliers (of which there are a few) I wouldn't have a business to run here in the UK.

Bit late to the scene

During my course of business I have acquired 30 of the HTC Vive units which we ship to test/review and games conventions etc.

I was slightly dubious to this tech being I've been there and seen the 80s/90s effort plus the original oculus which made me sick.

However with the Vive I was blown away at just how good it is at tracking and giving you the sense of 3D dimensions and room scale movement. It's a need to try to realised kind of thing.

Yep it's early days, 60% the games/apps are like poor demos, but there are some real promising games, applications like the human body and solar system environments and has real potential for education.

That time again

Oh Samsung

With my recent experiences of Samsung, my brand loyalty is over with them.

Having had several Samsung phones since switching from apple, from the first note series on to the s4,s5 and most recently note edge.

The glass broke through my own fault on my note edge, I called the repair centre and was greeted with a cost of £200 for the glass only plus labour charge depending on how long it took to fix, this is the walk In service in Wembley btw. I asked on lead time and was greeted with well however long it takes to get the parts in I guess, at which point I hung up and flogged it on eBay.

Along with the crap firmware rollout on most of their gear, I'm done.

I'm not an apple hater or a lover but at least the fixed cost they offer is reasonable at £70 all in for a screen repair.

I hope they have sorted the wifi issues out, I have the original unit bundled with Windows 8, and while good,the wifi suffers from horrific 3-4 Kbps transfer speeds when the Bluetooth is on and a snails pace 1-1.5 MBps when Bluetooth is disabled. Forums are plagued by people with the same issue. Does the same on Linux as on Windows with multiple wifi routers.

Using a usb Ethernet adapter makes the whole thing clunky for using with kodi.

Re: My Car Is Not a Phone

And the difference talking to a passenger is? I disagree that holding a phone to ones ear is no more dangerous that hands free. Surely it's better to be totally hands free on a call that to have one hand on the steering and one pushing a phone to your ear!

Not on your own

I'm with you on this, had their 80Mb fibre for two years, using standard bt supplied modem and a sonic wall, never had any issues at all, get a constant 76-77 Mb and regularly download 150-200GB per month with no caps, slow downs, inbound VPN works fine as do all my web facing servers.

I think maybe in densely populated areas they have congestion, but I live in a tiny village with maybe 30-40 houses so that could be the difference?

Bollocks

While I am not adverse to any new wireless speaker tech, this does stink of false info or a sales pitch by El reg.

"Play-Fi works inside the range of the building’s Wi-Fi system, meaning it can work outside, an area of weakness for Sonos". err I have my sonos bridge directly next to my wifi router and I can't get wifi down the bottom of my garden but my play 5 works perfectly down the end, and yes I have tried new routers and different wifi channels on both 2.4 & 5Ghz.

"DTS also says the signal going to the speakers is lossless – again, unlike Sonos and others – and especially Bluetooth-based systems" Sonos has supported lossless for some time now using online streaming services and FLAC local streaming direct to the speakers, and update last year brought lossless direct to the amp / speakers.

Yes having a bridge is a bit of a PITA but it bundles it for free in most cases now when the offer is on with the play series.

Most of my kit is cabled anyway but it's handy having a play 5 that can be used anywhere in the house/garden where my wifi fails, maybe due to the meshing nature of the kit?

Re: Is this just WAAS?

Mine arrived on Tuesday morning to replace my htc one which I loved dearly but the upgrade to the m8 was too small in terms of features so I chose the z2

So far this is the best phone I have owned,battery life is staggering I managed two days on a full charge using sat nav, three exchange accounts active and that first day fiddling you do when all new phones arrive.

Camera is way better than I had expected even in low light.

Memory slot is a godsend coming from the htc with 32Gb to this with 16GB internal.

It's fast very fast in general use.

The biggest bonus seems to be the signal reception, on my other previous phones, iPhones,htc one my reception was poor to non existent at home and I had to be in the right spot to make and receive calls, not so with this it's like having a external antenna.

Maybe the metal back on the htc doesn't help or the fact that the iPhones use the metal band around the side, for any of you in poor signal areas I recommend the phone purely on this.

Down vote time

I still don't get why people buy iPhones,the world of android has so many awesome options like miracast, throw to screen, customisation and roms, I would never go back to an iPhone after having used android for a year.

You obviously haven't heard a decent set of speakers connected to a sonos connect amp, or connect standard.

Granted the play five is nothing special but is great for being semi portable, garden etc during BBQ.

I have a connect amp in my dining room with a pair of monitor audio bx2 connected.

In the lounge I have the connect standard, wired up to a two channel quad amp and monitor audio gold speakers, when played back using the controller with the new flac steaming service it sounds better than any of my previous setups.